Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/271

Rh an atmosphere of another kind. The objects around have been seen so often, that they have at last become, as it were, unseen; their familiarity does not carry us out of ourselves, for all their associations are our own. They remind us of nothing in which we were not the principal actors; if they call up the image of a friend, they call up our own also. Not a chair nor a table but has some link with our by-gone hours. Here we read, modifying the thoughts of others with our own; there we wrote; and how much is implied in that little phrase! how the whole world of inward existence passes before us, while putting only a small portion of it on paper! With how much is every letter combined, whether of business, or of affection! The room is filled with the ghosts of departed hours, often unnoticed and unremembered; but, when recalled by some chance circumstance, how vivid, and how distinct do they rise upon the memory! The chamber in which Lord Norbourne was seated, was especially one of this kind; it had been his own room for years, and was